Heretofore, conventional bowling lanes have been constructed of suitably finished hardwood blocks or planking that are mounted on a substructure including longitudinally extending beams, usually 2".times.10" in cross-section, and a plurality of transverse beams, usually 2".times.4". While wooden lanes have been in use for many years, they are subject to a number of deficiencies, and more particularly, they can be easily and severely damaged in the areas of ball release and at the pin deck. The damage in the ball release area is particularly intensified by lofted bowling balls which, upon impact, dent the lacquered and oiled wooden surface. Surface damage in the pin deck area is primarily caused by contact of the struck pins with the bowling lane surface.
An improved high pressure laminate surface suitable for bowling alley lanes is disclosed in Japanese Application No. SHO-50-111020 laid open for inspection on May 18, 1976 as Publication No. SHO-51-56548, which corresponds to U.S. Pat. Application Ser. No. 506,069, filed Sept. 16, 1974 (now abandoned), the disclosure of which was carried forward in U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 926,604, filed July 21, 1978. The new and improved bowling lane surfaces have been successfully tested in the United States and have been welcomed as an advance in the art, as exemplified by the publication "Bowling", January, 1977 at page 6.
The new and improved high pressure laminate surface referred to above comprises a bowling lane surface which is a wear and impact resistant decorative plastic laminate having a plurality of thermosetting resin impregnated decorative fibrous print sheets and an overlying melamine resin-containing protective layer. The decorative surfacing is in the form of panels which can be cemented, fixed or suitably adhered to the bowling lane upper substrate layer which can be of wood, hardboard, plywood, flakeboard, chipboard or the like. The laminate surface is so constructed as to approximate the same reaction to ball delivery as wooden lanes.
Although reinforced high pressure laminate surfaces for bowling lanes have been commercially accepted, it has been noted that a problem area arises in the ball impact zone in certain installations.
Fundamentally, it has been found that there are three kinds of ball impact cracks. First, there is the circular or partially circular break which extends through the thickness of the entire plastic laminate. Although this is the most severe form of damage to a lane, it is perhaps the least important because it only occurs under severe misuse of the bowling lane. Bowling balls lofted very high or very far down the lane are the cause. The second kind of impact crack occurs in the back or the bottom portion of the plastic laminate, but does not progress through the laminate to the upper surface of the bowling lane. When an impact crack of this type results from a single impact, it can be seen as a dent in the surface with a linear or star-shaped stress pattern visible in the dent. If it results from a series of less severe impacts, this cracking could only be seen in the back or bottom of the laminate, and its appearance is generally similar to that of mud cracking in a dry lake bed. The third kind of impact cracking occurs predominantly in the normal ball impact area, two feet in back of the foul line to four to five, and possibly as far as eight feet, down the lane. These cracks are single or multiple arcs in the surface of the laminate progressing almost exclusively in the general longitudinal direction of the lane. Upon a close examination of these third types of impact cracks, it is noted that the cracks are only in the upper surface of the laminate, and are stopped from progressing through the entire thickness of the laminate by the glass reinfocement disposed intermediate the depth or thickness of the laminate. It has been determined that the second and third types of impact cracks, usually referred to as shear cracking, is predominantly as a result of loose boards in the substructure supporting the reinforced high pressure laminate.
It has been suggested that correction of a damaged section of a bowling lane could be accomplished by routing down the existing lane and placing a dense one-piece plastic insert into the routed-out recess. However, the router blades would be destroyed by the nails in the boards of the substructure supporting the lane. As an alternative, it has been suggested to cut out a lane section, and replace it with a new identical section. However, the cost involved in the cost of labor and replacement cost of the laminate would be excessive. Also, since years of sanding have left bowling lanes of widely varying thicknesses, this technique would require that the newly manufactured section be either significantly thicker than necessary and sanded or routed flush with the old section, or be raised above the existing substructure by either building the substructure higher or using thick shims which would thus contribute to instability across the lane surface.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a new and improved process for repairing a damaged section of a bowling lane in a quick, efficient, and less costly procedure, and such is the primary object of the subject invention.